A Bollywood Affair (6 page)

Holy. Fuck. Talk about complicating the plot.

“Okay, listen, if I knew who this Ridhi was, would I have asked who she was?” He tried logic. Although from what he’d seen thus far logic didn’t stand much of a chance with this one.

“What kind of man doesn’t know his own sister-slash-cousin-slash-whatever you are?”

Did she just say “sister-slash-cousin”? Who used the word
slash
in a sentence? “So you think this Ridhi person is my sister-slash-cousin?” Not that he knew what that even meant. Could she speak Sane, please? He continued to smile at her with that utterly absorbed look that made chicks go all gooey in the head.

Her onyx eyes narrowed, then widened in shock. “You’re not Ridhi’s brother?”

Now they were getting somewhere. He nodded. “Not her brother-slash-cousin-slash-any other relation.”

Her flawless chocolate skin went the oddest shade of maroon. He didn’t know how she did it but her super-tiny form shrank into itself. “Oh. Then why were you chasing me?”

Great question. And the perfect cue.

He reached for his messenger bag with the papers that had brought him here, playing the lines he had to say in his head: Virat’s plane. The annulment.

The yellow notepad slipped from his hand and fluttered to the gray linoleum floor. He squatted next to it. It was more than half-filled with closely scrawled words. He picked it up and stroked the ink-filled lines with his thumb. The words had burst from him all night like water from a hose. And man, had it felt good.

“What’s that?” Her onyx eyes skimmed the pad and met his as she tried to sit up. Pain exploded in her eyes and she folded over on her side.

He sprang up and leaned over her curled-up body. “Shh, it’s okay.”

Hair spilled over her face. He pushed it aside to reveal wet cheeks and a face scrunched up in pain. “Try to breathe. I’ll call the nurse.”

By the time the nurse had pumped her full of pain meds again, Samir found himself firmly in the middle of a classic good news–bad news scenario. The bad news was that he was stuck playing nursemaid for the next few weeks. For one, there was no one else to do it. For another, he just couldn’t bring himself to serve her annulment papers while she lay there doped out of her mind. The good news was that when he went home in a few weeks not only was he going to have his brother’s annulment, he was also going to have a completed script.

 

“Thanks.” It was the first thing she said when she opened her eyes.

Samir looked up from the yellow pad—it was almost out of pages—and found a shyness on her face that hadn’t been there before.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m afraid to move,” she said, barely moving her lips, but her eyes smiled. “You didn’t answer my question earlier. Why were you chasing me?”

“I wasn’t. I just moved into your building. My uncle is from your village, Hari Bishnoi. He gave me your address. I was just trying to stop by and say hello when you took off. I just followed you.” His writing mojo was definitely back. In all its genius.

“Well, that was stupid.”

So much for genius.

Seriously, she jumped off a balcony and rode a bike into a tree and
he
was stupid? But instead of telling her that he gave her one of those made-just-for-chicks smiles he had honed to an art form during his modeling years.

She frowned. “So, you’re just my new neighbor?”

“Yup.” Or at least he would be as soon as he got DJ to find him an empty flat in that shit-smelling building of hers.

“And you sat here all night watching over me when you don’t even know me?” Her eyes filled with tears.

What the fuck?

She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again and met his eyes with such directness he felt it all the way in his gut. “I think it’s time we started over.” She touched her heart with her unhurt hand, a one-armed namaste. “Hello, Samir. My friends call me Mili and I’m honored to make your acquaintance.”

8

T
he sound of Samir moving about in her kitchen woke Mili. She had been home for almost a week and Samir had planted himself by her side so firmly she was reminded of her neighbor’s goat in Balpur. The goat had shadowed Mili so insistently Naani had named him “Viratji” in a bid to move the fates along. Except that unlike the goat or his namesake, Samir had actually saved Mili’s life. If not for him, surely she would have died either of starvation or an exploded bladder.

She sat up on the mattress on the floor. Samir had moved Ridhi’s mattress to the living room for her. For the hundredth time since she had met him, she sent up an apology for comparing him to Kamini. The only thing Kamini had ever bothered to save was her marble-white complexion from the Rajasthan sun. Mili had always marveled at her impressive collection of umbrellas and her diligent use of them. The only thing Samir was proving to have in common with Kamini was said white complexion but with none of the proud awareness of possessing it. He might strut around in that way of film heroes with overly bulky arms—as if he were lugging buckets of water in both hands—but he had carried Mili up and down the stairs to her doctor’s appointments, fed her, and made sure she took all of her thousand medicines before the pain killed her.

As usual, he had propped up the crutches against the wall so they were within easy reach. Frustration tugged at her mouth and she frowned at the blasted things. What was the point of those crutches anyway? She’d been brilliant enough to hurt her wrist and her ankle at the same time, so she had no real way of gripping the stupid things to push herself anywhere. Add to that the fact that she was the most uncoordinated fool in all of Balpur and those crutches were going to stay propped against that wall until one of her broken parts healed.

“Why are you glowering at the crutches again?” Samir grinned his toothpaste-model grin and it was almost as beautiful as the sandwiches in his hands. “Do you need to go?” He indicated the bathroom door with a flick of his head and Mili wanted to die.

His stupid grin widened. It was a good thing her medication turned her into a drooling, groggy loon who dropped off into la-la land without warning. If it weren’t for being drugged and half-conscious she didn’t know how she could have handled letting a complete stranger help her to the bathroom and then wait outside while she struggled to do her business. And he usually did it without any hint of that amused grin he was flashing at her now.

He nudged her with the plate and she realized she was staring at her hands to avoid meeting his gaze. She gaped at the twin pieces of art he had piled on the two plates Ridhi had left behind. Her mouth watered like a starving street urchin’s. Every kind of vegetable was stacked up in layers of color between two brown pieces of bread.

At first she’d been embarrassed to let him into her kitchen, given that the sum total of her food supply included one half-eaten Hershey bar, a carton of milk, and stale, greasy noodles. But he had gone out and picked up bags full of groceries, and all her medicines, and a heating pad. He’d insisted the groceries were really for him, because he needed to eat too and apparently there were no utensils in his apartment.

He had let her use his cell phone to call the Institute, Panda Kong, and her professors to let them know that she needed to stay off her ankle for two weeks. Professor Bernstein at the Institute had told her to take four weeks if she needed to. “I’ll remember to exploit you once you get back on your feet,” he’d said with so much kindness she had spilled tears onto Samir’s super-fancy phone.

Egghead at Panda Kong had been far less gracious. “Don’t know if can keep job whole two weeks,” he’d said. But at least he hadn’t fired her like she’d expected him to. She’d been prepared to beg if needed, but a promise to return to work as soon as she could had been enough. How on earth was she going to send money to Naani this month with two weeks of dishwashing wages gone? And there was still the little issue of the rent. Not to mention paying Samir back for her medicines and the groceries.

Samir handed her a plate. “See, you can already sit up by yourself. In a few days you’ll be using the crutches with ease.”

Only someone who had no idea how clumsy she was would say such a thing.

“This is beautiful,” she said reverently, and picked up the top slice to study the riot of color inside.

“Don’t worry, Mili, there’s no meat in it.” He raised an amused eyebrow at her as she poked the innards of the sandwich.

“Sorry, I have to check. It’s just a habit. I had a horrible incident at the union last month.” She thought about how awful
that
stuff had tasted and wiggled her shoulders to ward off the memory. “I told the person ‘no meat’ and he tells me: ‘It’s not meat, it’s fish.’ Yuck!” The memory almost made her lose her appetite. But who was she fooling? With a sandwich like this in her hands there was no real danger of that happening.

Samir laughed that low, understated laugh that didn’t belong on a pretty boy at all and took a bite of his own sandwich.

“Are you a vegetarian or a nonvegetarian?” she asked him, carefully laying the slice back in place.

“I do eat meat, but if you mention that in front of my mother, I’ll deny it. And then I’ll have to kill you for breaking her heart.”

Mili bit into the sandwich and almost passed out again. “What on earth did you put in this?” she said, chomping with all thirty-two teeth and thanking all the gods for every one of the ten thousand taste buds in her mouth. “This is delicious!”

He watched her eat, his smile disappearing behind a guarded expression, and pulled two envelopes out of his pocket. “Your mail.” He crossed his legs and settled into the mattress next to her.

Both envelopes had the university logo on them. Mili’s heart sank.

She took another bite before forcing herself to put the sandwich down and picked up the one from Snow Health Center first. Despite the flavors dancing on her tongue, nervousness trembled in the pit of her stomach. So much for being able to stretch the fifty dollars in her pocket.

She had tried to ask the nurse how much all those splints and medicines were going to cost but all she’d said was, “We’ll send you the bill in the mail.” At least Mili had assumed she was talking to her, because the nurse’s eyes had been glued on Samir. Just like the doctor’s eyes and the receptionist’s eyes. Just about every woman who’d walked into her room had had eyes only for him. He seemed perfectly comfortable with the attention. He gave every one of the drooling females the glad eye, and soaked up all the adulation without the least bit of an apology. How must it be? To be worshiped because of the way you looked. She glowered at him. Then felt like a terrible person because he had just fed her the best food she’d eaten in days, in months.

He chomped at his sandwich and tipped his chin at the bill, coaxing her to open it.

Mili squared her shoulders and ripped the envelope open. Her mouth went dry. The amount under the “To be Paid by Patient” column made it hard to breathe. He handed her a glass of water and she repaid him by almost choking to death on it.

He moved closer and rubbed her back. “What’s the matter, Mili?” Gentle up and down strokes.

She sidled away and glared at him. “You’re trying to choke me to death, that’s what’s the matter.” Dear Lord, she was an awful, terrible person.

Instead of rising to her bait, he took the paper out of her hand. “Is that your hospital bill?”

She thought about snatching it back but what was the point? She was letting a complete stranger practically live in her home and he had taken care of her more than any human being other than Naani ever had. There really was no point in standing on ceremony.

But then he looked at the figure on the paper and smiled. He smiled!

“It’s just a hundred and twenty dollars,” he said.

 

Samir kicked himself. Of all the dumb-assed things to say. Mili’s face deflated right before his eyes, as if he had taken a pin to that ridiculously upbeat spirit of hers.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. It’s just that with everything one hears about hospital bills in America I was expecting to see a larger amount.”

Her eyes widened in horror. But just for one second.

What was wrong with this girl? She had enough money to pay for a ticket to America and an education here and a hundred-and-twenty-dollar bill was giving her palpitations? He looked around the apartment. Shit, he was an idiot. Baiji was right, his brain totally shut everything out when he was working. There was no furniture, no food in her apartment. A sick sort of feeling twisted in his heart.

She took the bill back and looked at it again. Muscle by muscle she pulled herself together. God, if he could get his actors to show each and every emotion like this he’d be the best fucking director in the world.

“You’re right, it’s only one hundred and twenty. I must’ve misunderstood the number of zeroes. You must think I’m so stupid.” She topped off the act with a perfect self-deprecating grin and a smack on the forehead with her bandaged hand. Pathos, anyone?

And he thought he was the grand master of backtracking. She was totally kicking his ass in that department. “Not at all, an extra zero would scare me shitless too,” he said, and took a bite.

Her shoulders slumped. She looked absurdly relieved, her filter-less, expressive face at work again. Then suddenly she remembered the avocado-tomato-carrot-and-green-pepper sandwich on her lap and the tension evaporated for real. She dived into the sandwich. There really was no other word for it. Each bite seemed to make pleasure wash through her being. Her lips, her throat, her eyes, all of her got involved in the experience. Got lost in it.

He stood and backed out of the living room. He put the dish in the miniscule sink and glanced around the kitchen. Truly, how had he missed this? The entire apartment was marginally larger than his closet back home. Maybe all of four hundred square feet. The living room was the size of a large passageway with a niche to one side that served as a dining space and led into a kitchen that housed one noisy fridge, a cruddy cooking range, and two feet of counter space. At the other end of the passage-slash-living room, as Mili would call it, was a bedroom that could hold two mattresses, a crappy old dresser and desk, and enough space to tiptoe between those. The bathroom was the size of Samir’s linen cabinet, a stand-up shower that he would never fit in, a pot that had his knees knocking against a wall when he sat on it and a sink he could wash his hands in while sitting on the pot.

Okay, so the girl wasn’t exactly loaded and he should have seen it sooner. And if he hadn’t been writing like a crazed genius he might even have. He rinsed off the plate, letting steam rise from the sink, and forced himself not to think about the bliss on her face when she ate. He had to be careful, real careful with this one. For all her guileless innocence, for all her wretched condition, he had to remember that nothing justified sending a legal notice to a man lying in the hospital fighting for his life. Especially when that man was Bhai.

 

“DJ, this apartment is really and truly a piece of shit. Warm and fresh-from-the-ass shit. It smells like shit, it feels like shit, all the stuff in it is actually the color of diarrhea.” Samir looked around “his” apartment. Just the thought of calling it that made him cringe.

But for the next month it was his. He had made DJ rent the shithole because it was two doors down from Mili’s. Apparently it had been easy. Apparently more than half the building was empty. Big surprise.

“There’s a Hyatt two miles from you. I’ve had a suite booked there for the past week. Either get your ass over there or stop whining like a little baby.”

“I can’t go to the Hyatt, genius. Mili can’t leave the house. Someone needs to keep an eye on her. She doesn’t even have a cell phone. It’s like she’s living on Gilligan’s Island, only with no friends.”

“She has at least one friend, it would seem.” Swami DJ laced his voice generously with meaning.

“Yeah, I’m doing this for friendship, asshole. Not because my brother is lying in bed with both legs in casts and a pregnant wife who may not be his wife at all. You think I like playing nursemaid?”

DJ answered that with some loaded silence. Whatever.

“Listen, there’s really no one else here to help her. Her roommate eloped the day I arrived.”

“The girl seems to have quite a penchant for drama.”

“No shit.”

“You still writing? You think you’ll get it in by the deadline?”

“I might just.” Truth was he was damn sure nothing was going to stop him from meeting his deadline. And it was a fucking miracle. They’d been back from the hospital just six days and Samir had already written more than he had in years.

Except he hadn’t written one single word of it in this shit-colored haven. All his writing had happened around her. He’d typed the words from the yellow pad into his laptop in her apartment the day they got back and then written like a madman all night and all morning while she slept. And then written some more for the past few days while she slept some more.

His laptop sat open on the battered carpet that naturally was the color of bacterial diarrhea. He’d tried to write before he called DJ but he’d been able to do nothing more than stare at the damn screen.

“I’ll let you know how things go. Can you at least find out if there’s an option in this building with less excretory accents?” After all, Mili’s apartment was smaller but not as hideous.

“Of course I will, boss. It’s what I do.”

Samir thought about giving writing in his own apartment another shot but he knew he would be wasting his time. He’d been pushing away the realization but he couldn’t anymore. By some damn trick of fate it had turned out that after that night in the hospital, being around Mili helped him write.